Junichiro Koizumi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Junichiro Koizumi (小泉 純一郎, born January 8, 1942) is a Japanese politician and the current Prime Minister.
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2 Political life 3 Popularity 4 Controversy 5 List of Koizumi Cabinet Members 6 External links |
Personal life and education
He was born in Yokosuka City, Kanagawa prefecture to Junya Koizumi, a director general of the Defense Agency and a second-generation Diet member, and was educated at Yokosuka High School and Keio University, where he studied economics. He was briefly at the University of London before returning to Japan in December 1969 on the death of his father.
Before becoming Prime Minister, he had married in 1978. The marriage ended in divorce in 1982 and he vowed never to marry again. He has three sons, two of whom live with him and have not met their mother since the divorce. The youngest, a student a Keio University, has never met his father.
Political life
After a failed attempt to get elected he did become a member of the Lower House for the 11th Kanagawa Prefecture in December 1972. He was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and joined the Fukuda faction, he has been re-elected ten times. He became in 1992 Minister of Posts and Telecommunnications under the government of Miyazawa Kiichi. He was three times Minister of Health and welfare under the governement of Takeshita Noboru, Uno Sosuke and Hashimoto Ryutaro.
He gained his first senior post in 1979 as Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Finance and his first ministerial post in 1988 as Minister of Health and Welfare under Noboru Takeshita. He had cabinet posts again in 1992 and 1996-1998. In 1994, with the LDP in opposition, he became part of a new LDP faction, Shinseiki, made up of younger and more motivated parliamentarians.
He competed for the presidency of the LDP in September 1995 and July 1999, but he gained little support losing decisively to Ryutaro Hashimoto and then Keizo Obuchi. In April 2000 Obuchi was replaced by Mori Yoshiro after falling seriously ill. Koizumi became leader of his party on his third attempt on April 24, 2001. He had 298 votes, while his closest rival, Ryutaro Hashimoto gained 155 votes, Koizumi's victory was due to local chapters being allowed to vote as well as Diet members. He was made Prime Minister on April 26, 2001. His coalition secured 78 of 121 seats in the Upper House elections in July.
Popularity
He was initially a extremely popular leader with his outspoken nature and colourful past. He pushed for new ways to revitalise the moribund economy, aiming to act against bad debts with commercial banks, privatise the postal savings system, and reorganise the factional structure of the LDP. He spoke of the need for a period of painful restructuring in order to improve the future. However there was strong opposition to his reform plans within the LDP and the bureaucracy and little reform has occurred and the economy has remained in recession, "moribund". He sacked his Foreign Minister Tanaka Makiko in January 2002, replacing her with Kawaguchi Yoriko and since then his approval rating has been in steady decline. Nevertheless, he was reelected in 2003.
Controversy
His liberal credentials with the rest of Asia were damaged by a controversial visit to the Yasukuni Shrine on August 13, 2001. He also approved the expansion of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and in October 2001 they were given greater scope to operate outside of the country.
On January 1, 2004, Koizumi made a surprise New Year's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. It was his fourth visit to the shrine since becoming Prime Minister. Again, the visit drew strong condemnation and protests from Japan's neighbors, mainly the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, and North and South Korea, who still hold bitter memories of Japanese wartime atrocities. The event held even greater significance than previous visits in light of the imminent dispatch of Self-Defense Forces troops to Iraq.
List of Koizumi Cabinet Members
- Minister for Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications - Taro Aso
- Minister of Justice - Daizo Nozawa
- Minister of Foreign Affairs - Yoriko Kawaguchi
- Minister of Finance - Sadakazu Tanigaki
- Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology - Takeo Kawamura
- Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare - Chikara sakaguchi
- Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries - Yoshiyuki Kamei
- Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry - Shoichi Nakagawa
- Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport - Nobuteru Ishihara
- Minister of the Environment - Yuriko Koike
- Chief Cabinet Secretary Minister of State for Gender Equality - Yasuo Fukuda
- Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Measures for Declining Birthrate, Minister of State for Food Safety - Kiyoko Ono
- Minister of State for Defense - Shigeru Ishiba
- Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs, Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy, Minister of State for Personal Information Protection, In charge of Information Technology - Toshimitsu Motegi
- Minister of State for Financial Services, Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy - Heizo Takenaka
- Minister of State for Regulatory Reform, Minister of State for Industrial, Revitalization Corporation of Japan, Minister of State for Administrative Reform, Minister of State for Special Zones for Structural Reform, Minister of State for Regional Revitalization - Kazuyoshi Kaneko
- Minister of State for Disaster Management,Minister of State for National, Emergency Legislation - Kiichi Inoue
External links
| Preceded by : Mori Yoshiro | Prime ministers of Japan | Succeeded by: — |